Space-based sodium Lidar instrument and method of operation

1. A Lidar instrument comprising: a laser transmitter including: a continuous wave diode laser which emits laser beams at a predetermined wavelength, through mode matching lenses and a high reflective mirror to pump a c-cut Nd:YVO 4 crystal; a tunable seed continuous wave diode laser which emits laser beams through at least one mode matching lens, said laser beams which are redirected by a beam splitter to said c-cut Nd:YVO 4 crystal, such that the tunable seed laser acts as an injection seeder for said c-cut Nd:YVO 4 crystal to allow for tuning of the Nd:YVO 4 crystal which tunes said continuous wave diode laser to produce light at a wavelength of 1066 nm; wherein said tunable laser light after passing through said c-cut Nd:YVO 4 crystal self-Raman shifts to 1178 nm; wherein said continuous wave diode laser and said tunable seed continuous wave diode laser produce tunable laser light across the sodium D 2 absorption line; and wherein said c-cut Nd:YVO 4 crystal is a zig-zag crystal which supports multiple total internal reflections of optical wave propagation therethrough, and increases an optical path length greater than a physical dimension of said zig-zag crystal.

2. The Lidar instrument of claim 1 , wherein said tunable laser light, after passing through said c-cut Nd:YVO 4 crystal, passes through one of a lithium triborate (LBO) crystal or a potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP) crystal which performs intra-cavity frequency doubling to output tunable laser light at 589 nm.

3. The Lidar instrument of claim 2 , further comprising: an output coupler, operating at 1066 nm wavelength, through which said tunable laser light passes after passing through one of said lithium triborate crystal or said potassium titanyl phosphate crystal, and which outputs said tunable laser light at said 589 nm wavelength.

4. The Lidar instrument of claim 3 , further comprising: an acousto-optic Q-switch which produces high-peak-power pulses to assist in said self-Raman shift to said 1178 nm wavelength in said c-cut Nd:YVO 4 crystal.

5. The Lidar instrument of claim 4 , wherein a tuning range for a Na fluorescence spectrum is 4 GHz.

6. The Lidar instrument of claim 5 , wherein said c-cut Nd:YVO 4 crystal is wrapped with an indium foil and bonded to a thermoelectric cooler (TEC) using a thermal phase change material (TPCM) as interface between the indium foil wrapped crystal and the TEC, for efficient cooling and thermal management.

7. The Lidar instrument of claim 1 , wherein said zig-zag crystal is an even bounced vanadate slab that exhibits 10 mrad pyramidal error, and exhibits lasing pulses of 50 Hz, at 100 μs pump duration, and Q-switched lasing with Cr 4+ :YAG as a saturable absorber.

8. The Lidar instrument of claim 7 , wherein said zig zag crystal is prepared from two pieces of vanadate crystals that are diffusion bonded end-to-end to achieve a length of 40 nm.

9. The Lidar instrument of claim 8 , wherein said diffusion bonding process is performed such that the crystalline axes are aligned to less than ±2 mrad.

10. The Lidar instrument of claim 3 , wherein remote atmospheric spectroscopy is performed by using said continuous wave diode laser as a master laser diode, said master laser diode comprising: a tunable Distributed FeedBack laser diode at 1178.4 nm, that is doubled to 589 nm and wavelength-locked to the sodium D 2 absorption line.

11. The Lidar instrument of claim 1 , wherein said tunable continuous wave diode laser is a slave laser diode dynamically offset-locked to said master laser diode by using an optical phase-locked loop.

12. The Lidar instrument of claim 11 , further comprising: a Mach-Zehnder modulator; and an amplifier; wherein pulses from said slave laser diode are externally modulated by said Mach-Zehnder modulator to form a frequency-stepped pulse train which is amplified by said amplifier; and wherein said amplified frequency-stepped pulse train is used to repeatedly measure at multiple points across the sodium D 2 absorption line.

13. The Lidar instrument of claim 12 , further comprising: a detector used as a full-spectroscopic sodium lineshape waveform to recover mesospheric temperature profiles.

14. A method of measuring range-resolved atmospheric sodium temperature profiles using a space-based Lidar instrument, comprising: providing a continuous wave diode laser which emits laser beams at a predetermined wavelength through mode matching lenses and a high reflective mirror to pump a c-cut Nd:YVO 4 crystal; providing a tunable seed continuous wave diode laser which emits laser beams through at least one mode matching lens; redirecting said laser beams emitted from said tunable seed continuous wave diode laser using a beam splitter, to said c-cut Nd:YVO 4 crystal, such that the tunable seed laser acts as an injection seeder for said c-cut Nd:YVO 4 crystal to allow for tuning of the Nd:YVO 4 crystal which tunes said continuous wave diode laser to produce light at a wavelength of 1066 nm; self-Raman shifting said tunable laser light after passing through said c-cut Nd:YVO 4 crystal, to 1178 nm; wherein said continuous wave diode laser and said tunable seed continuous wave diode laser produce tunable laser light across the sodium D 2 absorption line; and wherein said c-cut Nd:YVO 4 crystal, is a zig-zag crystal, said zig-zag crystal supporting multiple total internal reflections of optical wave propagation therethrough, and increasing an optical path length greater than a physical dimension of said zig-zag crystal.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising: passing said tunable laser light through said c-cut Nd:YVO 4 crystal and then one of a lithium triborate (LBO) crystal or a potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP) crystal, in order to perform intra-cavity frequency doubling to output tunable laser light at 589 nm from an output coupler operating at 1066 nm wavelength.

16. The method of claim 15 , further comprising: preparing said zig zag crystal from two pieces of vanadate crystals that are diffusion bonded end-to-end to achieve a length of 40 nm; and performing said diffusion bonding process such that the crystalline axes are aligned to less than ±2 mrad.

17. The method of claim 16 , further comprising: performing remote atmospheric spectroscopy using said continuous wave diode laser as a master laser diode, said master laser diode; wherein a tunable Distributed FeedBack laser diode at 1178.4 nm, is doubled to 589 nm and wavelength-locked to a sodium D 2 absorption line; and wherein said tunable continuous wave diode laser is a slave laser diode dynamically offset-locked to said master laser diode by using an optical phase-locked loop.

18. The method of claim 17 , further comprising: externally modulating pulses from said slave laser diode using a Mach-Zehnder modulator to form a frequency-stepped pulse train which is amplified by said amplifier; and measuring repeatedly, using said amplified frequency-stepped pulse train, multiple points across the sodium absorption line.

19. The method of claim 18 , further comprising: using a detector as a full-spectroscopic sodium lineshape waveform to recover mesospheric temperature profiles.